Allen K. Lair

Just roughly laying out where everything is to go and initial leveling

Some time around mid-October I finally got up the gumption to build the shed we need to get all the yard tools out of the foyer in the basement.  I thought about just buying one but after a lot of looking around, I realized we were looking at an enormous outlay of cash for a shed any bigger than a glorified carport for the lawn mower.  So I priced out the materials to build a good sized shed and decided now (or then) is the time and the weather is starting to finally cool off so I won’t die of heat exhaustion either.  Well it’s New Year’s Eve as I write this and although it’s just about finished, it took much longer than I had first expected.  Pretty much the only times I’ve been able to work on it are weekends and holidays and a few of those have been rainy soupy messes so I’ve had to cram as much building as possible into every available weekend, even if a few of them have been a bit chilly.

This last week of the year that my employer gives us off has been a true blessing with very few rainy days and even with several days set aside just for holiday stuff, I’ve finally been able to spend the better part of several days to really get some work done.  The entire structure is complete save some short two foot extensions left to finish off the roof and some small triangle shaped panels to go between the side walls and the slightly angled roof (just under a 10 degree pitch).  The entire structure is exactly 16 feet by 8 feet.  We were originally going to build it 16 by 10 but those extra two feet just seemed a bit too large.  As it is, it’s very large for a shed and it works out well for the size plywood is sold in   It’s no accident it’s also 8 feet tall (actually a little over nine at the front given the extra height for the pitch of the roof).  Oh and I need to build the doors and hang them.

Any mistakes?  A few but nothing huge.  I should have spent more time preparing the ground for the foundation laying a nice thick bed of gravel under the entire structure but I didn’t have time and I don’t have a pickup to go get a really big load of gravel (yet).  I did lay some gravel down but only under and around the foundation blocks around the periphery and in the middle of all the foundation cross-members.  Please don’t quote Matthew 7:26 to me or we may just get into a fist fight   Over the course of construction the center blocks appear to have sunken about 1/8 of an inch or so.  Not a lot but I’ll need to keep an eye on it.  The whole thing is unbelievably heavy but not so unwieldy it can’t be re-adjusted with jacks and some dirty clothes.  The rear half of the wall wasn’t perfectly square so I had to position the last two panels deliberately slightly crooked to even it back up and cut some skinny wedges to fill the gap along with lap fasteners.  Once it’s completely sealed and sanded you’ll never notice but you can clearly see what I did from the inside, at least until I wall up the inside, if that ever happens.

Here the foundation is completely leveled and all the flooring is done. There are several blocks underneath the floor as well that you can't see here. You can see how uneven my yard is by the varying size of all the foundation blocks. The back corner you can't see is three blocks deep.

So hopefully I’ll have time to finish the rest of the structure tomorrow save the doors since I need some 1x4s and 1x6s to build the frames that I don’t currently have and almost everything is closed tomorrow and it’s Sunday anyway.  All that’s left then is to finish the roof with that cheap corrugated vinyl stuff, seal all the joints, and prime and paint it.  I decided to just patch it really well and paint it for now and maybe later get some good vinyl siding.  Some flashing around the bottom and a bit of landscaping and voila a nice matched shed (or it will be once we paint the house ).  I didn’t keep track of everything I spent but I’d guesstimate about 600 or so.  If I had bought a shed this size it would have been somewhere north of $3500.  It’s a lot of work.  I mean a lot of work.  Really.  No I mean it.  Don’t start a project like this unless you’ve got some help (that you can trust to do a good job not just work for free pizza and you end up with a crooked nightmare) or you enjoy construction.

I had all the tools I needed so all it cost me was building materials and I already knew what I was doing from planning to design to construction.  If I had built something half the size it wouldn’t have taken anywhere near as long since so much more structural support is required.  Most importantly I enjoy building stuff like this.  Even if I had four grand to blow on a good quality structure this size I would have built it myself anyway just because it’s fun.

I’ve inserted several other pictures below in roughly consecutive order.

	Here the three walls surrounding the more complicated front section are complete. Note the angular supports to add much more support especially for the long idle periods between weekends of construction.
	Here all the one foot standoffs are complete that the roof supports will hang from. Note there are only three “rafters” that are only there to hold the structure square while the roof supports are completed that are the actual structural beams. Combined with the roofing this forms a very rigid support structure. I know because I had to get up on top of there to nail all the plywood on!
	Here a couple roofing sections have been put up and several of the wall sheathing panels are up. Dominique helped a lot with getting these perfectly sqare. This is not a one man job unless you are really strong. One of the extension panels is also up with all the notches cut out for the roof supports to poke through.You can’t really see from the photo here but the notches are a bit sloppy but it doesn’t matter since once everything is done some fascia is going over top of everything.  Also note the difference in the bottom crossbar length between this photo and the one above.  I made a design change and had to saw it roughly in half.  The support beams on each side are very wide and heavy (double wide).
	This is a shot of Dominique bringing me some more nails for securing the roof.  I think this was the day we got all the rest of the support structure finished underneath and the thin slat cut where the two panels don’t meet.  The two panels hang over the side a couple inches on each side so there is an empty section in the middle.  The front sections I won’t need to do this as I can just cut them so they line up with the support beams but the four large panels at the rear I wanted to place uncut.
	This is the cross-bracing underneath where the panels don’t line up with the studs, that also partially support the thin slat in the picture above.  Without these the panel on one side would sag horribly.You can see some of these cross-braces on the walls as well where the panels don’t line up with the studs.  The ceiling was intentional but the back walls were just a bit of bad planning.  The front section is deliberate.  They give the door area more strength and the two smaller panels would have made the stud spacing a bit strange.
	Here you can see the smaller panel on the one side is on and the cross braces are started for the other side.  If I remember correctly I was running out of daylight that day an decided to stop there.  There are two more braces left to go in on the one side before the panel goes on.  The front side should be very tortionally strong; the doors are going to be heavy both due to their physical size and the framing that keeps them rigid.
	This is a final photo I took before it started getting too dark to take a wide shot.  Everything is finished now except the front sections of the roof (about two feet), the two small triangular fascia pieces at the very top on each side, sealing of all the joints, then painting and finishing the roof with some cheap corrugated vinyl sheeting.  The doors will just be the same plywood the rest of the shed is made of with 1×6 framing around the edges on both sides with four big hinges per door due to their weight.
	This isn’t the greatest photo but you can see my little squaring booboo.  One of the panels had to be placed slightly crooked to keep the next one straight.  I cut out a thin wedge to fill the slight gap, secured it with lats from the inside, then sealed the whole thing with outdoor caulking.  I didn’t use silicone since it would have been impossible to sand smooth later.  The panel placed next to this one was almost perfectly square but I did have to shave a small bit at the bottom with my handy new Christmas present.Speaking of tools, I think the “Ridgid JobMax” is my new favorite tool.  There was a promotion during Christmas for the multitool and an extra free head so I got the jigsaw head.  The “JobMax” is basically a big AC motor that is the handle and you can snap different heads on the motor.  The two heads that I have are the multitool head and the jigsaw head, both of which are just really really handy.  Hats off to Ridgid for this idea.  It’s a great tool, it’s so stinking handy, and so far the quality is outstanding.  They even thought of putting a little light where the blade is that is more than just a gimmick.  I really like this tool.  Maybe the best Christmas present ever.  Thanks Dominique!
	This is taken from inside.  You can see all the extra framing around the doorway to handle the extra weight of the large doors.  The frame itself is double wide all around, with three extra “rafters” (that you can just barely see) holding it strong from back to front torsion, plus the four extra cross-braces that both hold the sheathing on and add extra strength for any side-to-side movement.  The doorway needs to be strong since the doors are going to be big and heavy, and swing almost 180 degrees.
	Today (New Year’s Day to be exact) I got the last pieces of the roof up.  The photo is the center piece.  It’s made of two pieces so I could maximize usage of leftover plywoodwood.  They fit perfectly and lined up nicely with the other two big sections.  The big sections at the front were cut to line up with the studs so the cross-braces didn’t need to extend out past the front of the shed on the outside.
	And finally a picture of the completed project save the two side pieces I’ll be putting on tomorrow.  I also put in the two extra cross-braces inside that you can’t see here today.  That completes everything except the two side pieces.  Then it’s all just fascia and painting (except the doors of course).
	Here is a closeup of the front section of where the top pieces will go, hopefully tomorrow.  Once those are cut and up the entire thing is complete except the doors.  I’ll be spacing blocks along the edge from leftover 2×4 pieces to attach the triangles to.  I’ll probably need to screw them in rather than nail them since the top half of the block probably won’t be strong enough to take the pounding.
	And finally!  The last two pieces!  They actually went in a little easier than expected.  It was putting the mounting blocks in behind them that was a real pain.  I picked up all the acrylic patching compound so next weekend, assuming we get another batch of warm weather, that will get all put on along with all the roofing.  I decided to box in the overhang since the rafters aren’t perfectly even.  I did them in a bit of a hurry since they were very awkward to hang initially (I had to do them by myself) so they aren’t perfectly even.  Building a simple box around them will fix my little mistakes and it will probably look nicer anyway.
	Winter – if you can call it that – has finally settled in this last week (mid-January) so I haven’t been able to do much.  It even snowed a little (but melted the next day).  This is the first door of the two swing out doors I’m building (bottom photo).  All the white stuff is exterior acrylic patching compound, the same as what is all over the front in the top photo doing dual duty as a sealant between large sheathing panels, and a patching compound over any knots that will show through when painted.  Given that I’m not putting siding on it right away it looks nicer when painted with all the knots smoothed over.  For the doors, it’s mainly just covering all the screw holes.  You can’t see from the photo because they’re all covered now but there is almost a full 1 pound box of screws holding the planks on both sides against the plywood.  The doors will be a little heavy but they are really solid. I had to bring it into the dining room to apply the acrylic compound because it’s too cold to apply outside.  Once the acrylic patching is dry tomorrow I’ll be cutting out the hinge notches and mounting it outside.  I may not be able to paint for several months but everything is sealed. I did the roof a couple weeks ago.  What a messy job.  I used asphalt roll roofing instead of the corrugated plastic or aluminum I originally planned on.  Because the roll pieces are so big and don’t have any self-adhesive, you need to use a lot of roofing tar that just sticks to everything if you’re not careful.  It looks good and is nicely sealed along the front and nice and even.  I still need to build the casing around the rafters but I want to get the doors done first.  All those clamps along the top are holding the edge of the roofing against a thick layer of roofing cement using some long skinny pieces of leftover lumber and plywood.  I took it all off about a week ago and it all sealed together nicely. Once the doors and the casing are done, the only thing left is painting.  Building a shed this large takes a ton more time than one say half the size say only 8 by 4 and maybe 4 or 5 feet high instead of 16 by 8 and 8 feet high (9 and a half with the roof).  There is just so much up and down the ladder because the roof is so high and everything is so big; most of the panels are uncut 8 by 4 plywood sheets.  All the studs need more support while building if you’re doing it in place.  It takes a lot longer to level a foundation that big.  With building a house you expect it to take forever but I really didn’t expect it to take so long just to build a shed! As a side note you’ll notice the ugly carpet and general mess and disarray in the dining room.  We’re planning on renovating that room soon so hopefully all that crap will be gone soon and it will be a real dining room again.